


Of Delirium and Dandelions

by SpectralHeart



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Horror, Body Horror, Gen, Horror, Horror AU, On Hiatus, Psychological Horror, cant wait to hurt these boys ;), ss horror family au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-07-20 22:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16147322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpectralHeart/pseuds/SpectralHeart
Summary: Ah -- what a shame. Patton's gotten his new apron dirty, and dried bloodstains are just so difficult to wash out, you see.





	1. dandelion [prologue]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which a wish is made and a game is played --
> 
> no, this is not a game.

_ A young boy plucks a dandelion from the ground. It’s the best one he’s seen all day — perfectly round and brilliantly white and so, so fluffy. He laughs a happy, twinkling sort of laugh and purses his lips to blow. _

_ “Wait!” shouts his friend, bounding up behind him. “You gotta make a wish first. That’s the rule!” _

_ “Oh, okay,” replies the young boy, a little sheepish. “I wish… I wish to… to…” What was that thing that his teacher had said yesterday? It had sounded really wise and smart. “I wish to always listen to my heart!” There, that was it. He’s not exactly sure what it means, but it sounds cool. Satisfied, he takes a big breath in and he blows as hard as he can. _

_ The dandelion seeds explode from the stem and go skipping about, carried on the wind. They look like the little ashes that fly out of a campfire pit whenever his father drops a new piece of firewood onto the pile — dancing around in the breeze as if they are alive. The boy watches them soar with a smile on his face. He catches a seed in his little fist. _

_ When he opens his hand again, the seed is gone. _

 

xxx **20 YEARS LATER** xxx

 

Logan had been the first one to notice that something about Patton seemed to be a little bit… different. The changes were infinitesimal and spread out over time, but Logan’s observant eyes never did miss much, and so when Patton began to talk less and smile more, Logan noticed. When Patton would spend days at a time hidden away in his room, Logan noticed. When Patton began to eat less, Logan noticed. When a subtle pain crept into Patton’s eyes and didn’t go away, Logan noticed.

Logan noticed, but he did not say anything to any of the other Sides until it was far,  _ far  _ too late. That was Logan’s first mistake.

So you see, it was really all  _ Logan’s fault. _

 

xxx

 

It had been Virgil who had taken it all a step too far. He should have realized that his sarcastic comments lately had crossed some kind of line and were offending Roman more than usual. Of course, Logan noticed. Patton noticed. Roman noticed. All of them saw when Roman was showing up to videos with his hair messy, his sash uneven, his crown askew, and a shorter temper than ever.

But Virgil didn’t notice, or perhaps he noticed but didn’t care enough to stop. That was Virgil’s first mistake.

So you see, it was really all  _ Virgil’s fault. _

 

xxx

 

If anyone could have made more of an effort, it was Roman. He got upset over the smallest of things in the days leading up to what happened, and he just kept expecting someone to resolve his problems for him. He could have spoken up; he could have just told Virgil to stop, to back off, to be a little kinder. But he said nothing and allowed the others to see his misery. He just wanted someone else to help him deal with the heartache he was going through. He wanted to know that the others cared about him. He wanted to be told that he was important, for  _ once  _ in his life.

No one spoke up. He continued to hold to his hope, telling himself over and over again that someone would offer to help. That was Roman’s first mistake.

So you see, it was really all  _ Roman’s fault. _

 

xxx

 

Whoever’s fault it was, it wasn’t Patton’s. That much was for sure. Patton did the right thing. Patton kept his family together. He helped Logan learn that it was okay to let other people know what he was feeling. He made sure that Virgil would never frown or say anything hurtful again. He guaranteed Roman’s permanent happiness. Or, at least, absence of sadness, which is more or less the same thing, right?  
Patton saved his broken family. He _helped_ them. He brought them back together, and now they wouldn’t ever separate again. He was quite certain of that.

All that it took was a tiny bit of bloodshed. Just a few drops; and the brand-new ruby red pearls that now decorated the mindscape were so beautiful, after all. 

Yes, Patton did the right thing. It didn’t matter what the other Sides thought. They simply didn’t have a strong enough grasp on what was best for Thomas. In time, they would come to understand his decision had been for the greater good. They had to. Thomas himself had said it, all those many years ago;  _ always listen to the heart. _

 

xxx

 

The pendant around his neck bounced up and down as he walked. Contained within it was a single dandelion seed. It was a lovely necklace; he’d found it while he was going through some of the more cluttered parts of his room, so many weeks ago. He didn’t remember it from Thomas’s childhood, but perhaps it had just been forgotten by everyone — until now.

After he put it on, he felt a little dizzy for a couple minutes and had to lie down. Perhaps he had passed out at one point. He wasn’t entirely sure.

But after the dizziness passed, a wonderful clarity came to him. He suddenly understood so much more. He’d spent so long being moral, being kind and loving and true and good and just and… and… and he was tired. Tired of Morality. Tired of who he was.  _ Tired of being tired. _

This wasn’t who he was meant to be. He was meant to make Thomas happy, not to make Thomas force himself to constantly be “the nice one”. The one who always had to bend over backwards to accommodate others. The loser — the geek — the whatever.

Thomas deserved a break. It was finally his turn to be happy! The other Sides were holding him back; they didn’t realize it, but they were destroying him from the inside out. Roman and Virgil were always fighting, Logan pretended that he didn’t have any feelings whatsoever. They were such a sad family, and it absolutely broke Patton’s heart to see the problems that plagued them, day in and day out. He had to help. He had to do  _ something. _

So Patton took responsibility. Thomas would be happy now. He’d be ecstatic, blissful, rapturous, euphoric…

He’d be  _ delirious. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... decided to try my hand at writing a horror story after seeing the amazing SS Horror Family AU laid out by @unipugsat221b (tumblr) and @somechildontheinternet (tumblr). Their plot was inspired by a drawing by @dailysandersidesaudoodles (tumblr), if you didn't know; link to the original post at the bottom. I'm incredibly inexperienced with fanfiction, having just picked it up near the beginning of the month, and I'm even more inexperienced with writing horror. So constructive criticism is totally welcome.  
> This was seriously so much fun to write; I got to play around with a new writing style and I tried a lot of different things. I'm not sure how well they worked, but hey, at least I enjoyed myself!! (It's surprising how much joy I can get from making Thomas's characters suffer... hehehe)  
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading!! It seriously means a lot to me that you finished this first chapter. I've put up a preview of the second chapter, which is already finished at this point, and it will go up on the last day of October. In the meantime, I'm in the mood for honing my craft a little by going ahead and doing the SS Spooky Month, which means I'll try to put up a short fic every day in October based on the prompts that you can find at @sanderssidesspook (tumblr). So maybe follow me if you wanna read more of my writing? I dunno.  
> Alright, this is getting really heckin long so I'm going to cut this here. Again, thank you all so much for reading. I love you all!! God bless!!
> 
> Inspired by:  
> https://dailysandersidesaudoodles.tumblr.com/post/178462799647/oh-oh-what-about-a-horror-au-where-everyone-has


	2. e = mc scared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a plan is proposed to an unwilling partner.
> 
> Chapter warnings: insanity, threats, blackmailing, blood, needles (the sewing kind), absolutely atrocious pacing, italics abuse

In retrospect, the signs had all been there — that is, signs that today would not be exactly like other days. They had just been too slight to notice unless one was actively looking for them.

Unfortunately for him, Logan had not been looking.

But they were undeniably there. The air had held a certain quality of heaviness so that every breath was not quite enough to satisfy. A metallic tang hung on the tail end of every word he’d exchanged with Virgil that morning. The subtlest notes of apprehension laced the walls and floor like a thread of fragile fairy lights, barely there unless you were looking for them, blinking out an unsteady tune:  _ dot-dot-dot/dash-dash-dash/dot-dot-dot.  _ It was almost as if the mindscape itself had known what was coming, and was trying to warn them in its own abstract way. 

Alas; poor Logan hadn’t caught the hazy messages of the mindscape. One might be inclined to wonder what might have happened if he had, but the fact remained unchangeable that he simply had not. It was quite useless to cling to might-haves. 

So what exactly  _ did _ happen? Now that, my dear, is a  _ fine  _ question.

 

xxx

 

Logan flipped yet another page of his novel, a bored expression on his face. Although the cover had advertised a thrilling horror story, Logan had discovered rather quickly that the contents of the story did not meet his expectations. A compelling plot had been destroyed by watering it down with too many words and not nearly enough action. Logan wasn’t finding himself to be too fond of the writing. 

So when he heard Patton come in, he was grateful for the distraction. Of course, he didn’t want to let it show too much — he didn’t want Patton to think that it would always be acceptable behaviour to interrupt him when he was in the midst of reading.

“Hello, Patton. Do you require something from me?” He asked, not looking up from his novel, the very definition of cool indifference. Logan assumed that Patton had finally come to ask for advice on whatever had been causing him to act so abnormally as of late. It was about time, honestly — Thomas had been experiencing heavy mood swings as a result of whatever Patton was having trouble with, and if Patton hadn’t come to find him today, Logan probably would have confronted him anyway. 

“Oh, how  _ kind  _ of you. You’re so considerate, Logan.” 

The words themselves weren’t too much out of the ordinary, but there was a hollow, unhinged quality to Patton’s voice that made Logan shudder involuntarily. He glanced up from his page.

And froze.

Morality stood with his arms twitching at his sides and his head tilted at an unnatural angle. His eyes were wild and clouded, a too-wide smile stretching from cheek to pallid cheek. The moral Side was in far, far worse shape than the last time Logan had seen him — when _ was  _ the last time Logan had seen him? He hadn’t really been keeping track.

Logan was starting to regret that now.

“Patton?” he faltered. A sense of uncertainty beginning to make itself known, Logan slowly lowered the book. “Patton, are you alright? You’re… scaring me a little bit.”

“Well, I should certainly  _ hope  _ I am!” the other Side giggled. The face belonged to Patton. The voice did not. “So nice to hear that you do care after all.”

“Patton, what are you… what do you mean?”

The Patton-who-was-not-quite-Patton leaned in, close enough that Logan could feel warm breath tickling his ear. “You know, I was really starting to wonder if you noticed anything at all. How silly of me, right? You see  _ everything _ . It’s just that you never really act. You just watch. Seems a little useless to be so observant when you never  _ do  _ anything.” Every syllable dripped with sour maliciousness.

Logan was starting to panic. Who was this strange imposter who had come into his room, wearing Patton’s face, carrying Patton’s voice? He opened his mouth — perhaps to cry for help, perhaps just to cry — but before he could, a feather-light finger fluttered down and came to rest on Logan’s lips. The sudden touch paralyzed him. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Logan registered the similarity of his current captor’s demeanour with that of a formidable predator, perhaps a lion, playing with his food before the kill.

But the next words that came out of the wild beast’s mouth were unexpected and almost seemed to carry notes of genuine concern. “I really do love you, Logan. You love me too, don’t you?”

Logan blinked, confused, a muffled sort of hysteria growing stronger by the second. “I— yes, of course, but—”

Patton’s mirthless smile grew even wider, a feat that Logan wouldn’t have thought possible. “Oh, that just  _ thrills  _ me to hear! I care about you so much, Logan. I would do anything for you. You can say the same for me, right? If I asked you to do a tiny little job for me, would you do it?”

Logan’s instincts screamed at him that he shouldn’t speak — that anything he said would only end up being used against him. But this… this  _ monster _ chilled him to his core in a way that he’d never known. 

Logan’s breathing came quick and shallow now, unsteady gasps murmuring  _ in-out-in-out _ at a pace almost matching the turmoil of thoughts swirling in and out of focus. Words were forming and bubbling in his chest, pushing up, up, up, demanding to be let out — or was that just another scream?

He needed to release the phantoms, or they’d rip their way out themselves. A raw, almost primitive, need to survive took over. He gasped out, “Yes, I’ll — I’ll do whatever you ask —” _I’ll do whatever will let me live the longest_ , was perhaps what the logical Side meant to say, but Logan was petrified out of his mind and could hardly hear the words he was saying. The accuracy of his statement hardly mattered at this point.

Just as he’d hoped, Logan’s words seemed to placate the porcelain-doll Patton, soaking a little life into the moral Side’s freckled face and softening the harsh corners of his eyes and mouth. The slight change was enough for Logan to take a breath and allow himself to hope that perhaps Patton was satisfied, perhaps Patton would leave him alone now, perhaps — 

“I’m not just asking out of curiosity, you know. There actually is something that I need your help with. I’m glad you agreed so quickly, Logan! And without even knowing what you were signing up for. It’s so great to know you trust me so much.”

_ Then again, perhaps not. _

 

xxx

 

Yesterday, Logan thought in rational shades of blue. His mind was a deep, thoughtful cerulean ocean, calm and collected. Tranquil. Accustomed to clear azure skies; not a cloud in sight.

Today, Patton spoke in ragged shades of red. He spoke in jittering, glittering letters that had been dunked in crimson dye and laid out to dry in the hot scarlet sun, drip — by drip — by drip. His words were bloodred and bursting with imperfect implications.

Patton had begun by asking Logan if he’d noticed anything odd about Roman and Virgil lately. Logan had to admit that the two Sides had been butting heads even more than usual.

“They’re hurting Thomas,” Patton insisted. “All the shouting is just making Thomas feel worse. He hasn’t put out a video with us in forever. You know why? It’s ‘cause Roman has pretty much zero confidence left! And Virgil’s just getting more and more anxious. Don’t you see it too? We  _ gotta _ help them, Logan.”

_ Drip. _ A red pebble quietly tossed into a deep blue sea.

Logan spoke, against his better judgement (indeed, he would come to regret having said anything at all very soon): “Well… how would we do that? Virgil and Roman are both undoubtedly stubborn. I imagine that it would have to take quite the grand gesture to move either of them.”

“Exactly!” Patton beamed. “I’m glad you get it, Logan. If we’re gonna fix Thomas, we have to do something  _ big _ , or Virgil and Roman won’t change at all. You know that, right?”

_ Drip.  _ A red raindrop, rippling the blue surface. And then another.

Patton continued. “Don’t worry about coming up with a plan. You already do so much thinking around here! I thought I’d spare you the trouble this time, so I came up with a plan of my own. It’ll be perfect.”

_ Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip… _

His lips moved without giving his mind time to catch up to what he was saying. “What do you need, Patton? Just name it.”

 

xxx

 

Morality spoke of — 

_ a prince, crown cracked and lopsided, pain and doubt starting to seep through the bright and happy face paint he wears. Eyelids plastered with artificial colours and flavours cannot hide the heavy bags that will not disappear no matter what he tries… so he stops trying. If sleep will continue to elude him, he might as well make the most of his time awake and churn out idea after idea after idea. Crumpled-up balls of paper litter the floor. He cannot outrun his failures; in fact, he steps on them wherever he goes — so he decides not to go anywhere at all until he’s come up with something that’s good enough. It has been six weeks, four days, and eleven hours. Nothing is good enough. The paint rubs off a little more. _

Morality told tales of — 

_ a troublemaker, good-guy/bad-guy/good-guy/bad-guy. Standing with one foot on both sides of a great ravine, unable to decide where he belongs. Begging for help, reaching out a hand with fingernails long and sharp that draw blood from the first wrist they manage to grab onto. Digging deeper. Pulling and pulling and finally pulling hard enough to swing to safety, but in doing so, pulling their saviour into the gaping maw of the canyon with barely a second thought. He is on steady ground. His helper has been thrown to the wolves and is still falling. _

Morality built a world where the prince was pacified, satisfied, always smiling. He’d see to it that the smile wouldn’t slip, not even for a second. After all, if he could make the prince’s  _ physical  _ state reflect his  _ mental _ , the prince would learn quite quickly that painful thoughts weren’t quite worth lingering on anymore.

The troublemaker would reach out and pull their hero back to the surface, and he’d never be able to hurt anyone so deeply again. It would be quite simple; all they had to do was take away his speaking privileges. Morality had already located a needle and some nice, colourful thread. The job would not be difficult.

Through it all, the logical Side sat, stock-still, silent, scarcely able to believe what Morality had said. Logan was almost able to hear the cracks running up and down his body — large, unsightly chasms made of terror and distress and revulsion. He had to hold it together or he’d break and send tiny sharp shards of himself scattering all over the hard, unforgiving floor. 

A minute ticked by, then two, before he was able to find his voice. Even then, his mind ran fast and his words were stumbling and uncertain, unable to keep up. 

“You want… you want me to… to help you torture Roman and Virgil,” he meant to ask. The sentence came out flattened and wilted, a period floating at the end instead of the question mark he’d intended. “You want me to aid you. In breaking Thomas’s creativity and anxiety.” 

“Yes, but we’ll build them back up afterwards. They’ll be so much better in the long run,” Morality said dismissively. “You know, like that time you took apart your computer and put the pieces back together so it ran faster? It’s just like that. Same kind of concept. You’ll help me, right?”

_ “What?”  _

Patton’s careless comparison snapped Logan out of the disbelieving trance he’d been put into. He continued, speech growing steadily in volume until he was shouting:

“You’re comparing a  _ computer,  _ a literal  _ machine, _ with Roman and Virgil? They are not the same, Patton! These are living, breathing, feeling beings that we are talking about!” A sharp, disbelieving laugh escaped from Logan’s mouth. “Yes, the circumstances between Roman and Virgil are not ideal, but that doesn’t mean that we can  _ hurt  _ them. This is their problem to work out! I don’t understand what’s gotten into you, Patton! You’ve been acting so strange recently, and — and now  _ this?” _

At first, Morality said nothing. The silence stretched out long enough for Logan to hope that he’d perhaps gotten through to the other Side after all.

Until he watched Morality’s shoulders begin to shake with barely contained laughter.

“Oh, Logan. You know, it would’ve been great if you’d seen  _ reason _ , but… well, I was kind of hoping you’d say no.”

Behind his thick black glasses, the logical Side’s eyes widened.

“Because if you’d said yes right away, this wouldn’t have been quite as much fun.

“Y’see, Logan, you don’t actually have a choice. I just wanted to give you a chance to get on my good side before the fun begins.” A grin played on his lips. “Oh! Would you look at that! I made a pun! Get it? Get on my good  _ side?  _ Ha! Oh, sometimes I crack myself up, you know?”

Seeing that Logan wasn’t having any of it, Morality’s smile was suddenly gone as quickly as it had come. “Anyway, not the point. What I’m trying to say is, I’m not really _asking_ you. You are going to help me. _That’s final._ Because even if you don’t, I’m going to go ahead and fix up Roman and Patton anyway, but I won’t stop there. Without your clever mind to tell me the best way to do this, I’ll have to go straight to the source and do a few touch-ups on Thomas, too.”  
“You wouldn’t,” Logan managed to say.

“Aw, what makes you say that, kiddo?” The once-familiar nickname tasted so unnatural in Morality’s mouth, now. “I’ve gotta fix our family somehow, but it won’t be nearly as fast without you helping me out. I want to get this done quickly though, which is why I’d need to make some minor adjustments to Thomas himself. But that’s another thing! You’re a lot less likely to make…  _ careless mistakes _ than I am. If I do this myself, what if I mess up and accidentally end up causing more permanent damage than I’d accounted for?

“...Hm. I guess this means that I lied a little bit. You actually  _ do  _ have a choice. You can either stand by and do absolutely nothing… or you can help me out and make sure that Thomas doesn’t get hurt. Well, not any more than necessary, at least. So, what’ll it be, Logan?”

 

xxx

 

Today, a raging red storm came screaming in and threw the blue into a frenzied panic. Crashing waves came rolling in, slamming fiercely into one another and sending seafoam flying. The blue swells grew higher and higher, surging, frenzied, into the once-peaceful purple sky.

Ah, but despite the chaos… it was such a  _ mesmerizing  _ shade of purple, and Logan found that try as he might, he couldn’t look away.

 

xxx

 

~~ ring around the rosie; ~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Frankly, I'm not satisfied with this chapter at all. But you know what? I've rewritten sections and cut out/edited all that I can handle, and at this point I think that if I don't post it now and move on to the next chapter, I'll never stop working on it. There comes a time where you just gotta say "screw it" and post anyway, you know? Hoping the next chapter can go a little better.
> 
> As always, constructive criticism is not only welcome, but encouraged!


End file.
